BASEBALL

BASEBALL; Perez Answers All Those Questions

By MALCOLM MORAN

Published: April 22, 1994

Those sirens never really stop sounding once the words "pitcher" and "surgery" pass one another too closely. The best that can happen is that their urgency is eliminated, gone if not forgotten, much like the way Melido Perez has distanced himself from his painful past.

Perez kept the Bronx peaceful yesterday, free of any late-inning crises, by pitching the Yankees to a methodical 4-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners in a game that was much like the afternoon -- brisk and free of storms.

The Yankees need those kind of days and nights if they are going to improve their status in the American League East and avoid the direct supervision of their boss, and they know where those simple games must come from. Tartabull Provides Support

"It's very encouraging for everybody," said Danny Tartabull, whose two-run homer in the fourth inning and wind-blown, run-scoring, bloop double in the seventh provided Perez with enough to win. "We've got to have him. We've got to have him."

Perez, 2-0 with an earned run average of 3.00, earned the staff's first complete game of the season and his first complete-game victory since Aug. 27, 1992. That was the year his 13-16 record, with 218 strikeouts, 10 complete games and a 2.87 earned run average, had more to do with a lack of support than his ability. That was also before last year, when the pain Perez experienced in his right shoulder made his forkball too painful to throw.

He tried to explain the problem at least once with tears in his eyes, in a 6-14 season, as the Yankees gradually slid out of the race.

Yesterday, with the standard-issue ice fastened to his right shoulder, the starter sounded relieved. The proclamation Perez made matched his performance. "The Melido you see in 1992 is me," he said. Extra Day's Rest

The inflammation in the right shoulder that ended his season last Sept. 3, and led to arthroscopic surgery in October, remains a factor in the Yankee plans. The start yesterday came with five days of rest, one more than usual.

"We'll keep that in mind," said Buck Showalter, the manager. "We're going to be protective of him."

But the issue on the field yesterday had more to do with concentration. Perez walked two batters in the second inning and consistently fell behind in 2-ball, 1-strike counts in the third, a pattern that catcher Mike Stanley had to talk about.

At the end of a deceptive one-two-three inning, Stanley met Perez on the dugout steps. He estimated that their conversation lasted 10 seconds. "Well," he remembered, "he didn't say anything back to me. I did all the talking."

The catcher's reminder had to do with the importance of getting ahead of hitters. "The way he talked to me, I like it," Perez said. "It wakes me up a little bit. Sometimes it's a little mean, but I like it."

He laughed at the memory. "He yelled at me," Perez said. "'Come on, man -- you've got to get ahead."'

Seattle cut the Yankee lead to 2-1 in the sixth when left fielder Luis Polonia, having started late on Ken Griffey Jr.'s high fly to short left, watched the single drop in front of him, and Felix Fermin cross the plate from second base.

Perez limited the Mariners to the one run and five singles through the eighth. Soon after, the pitching coach, Billy Connors, presented one last verbal nudge. "I said, 'You want it? It's your game,' " Connors remembered.

One inning later, despite a bases-empty home run by Tino Martinez, the once-frequent questions about speed and endurance and the health of a pitching shoulder were somewhere else.

"It's time to stop thinking that," Stanley said, "and just start thinking he's a guy who's going to be there for us." INSIDE PITCH

JIMMY KEY, who suffered bruised ribs when hit by a TINO MARTINEZ line drive in the third inning on Wednesday night, was optimistic that there would be no problem. His next scheduled turn in the rotation is Monday for the start of a two-game series against California. . . . BERNIE WILLIAMS will return to the team today. His wife, WALESKA, gave birth to their second child, BEATRICE NOEMI Wednesday night in Puerto Rico. . . . Former Yankee JAY BUHNER of the Mariners, who has a career .167 average against MELIDO PEREZ, did not play Thursday. In the last three games Buhner has played at Yankee Stadium, he has had 9 hits in 13 at-bats for a .692 average, with 3 home runs, 7 runs batted in, and a lunging backhanded catch before rolling into the right-center field wall.

Photo: Melido Perez notched the Yankees' first complete game of the season with a six-hitter against the Mariners. (Vic DeLucia/The New York Times)